On the recordMay 14, 2013
there is no room for politics at the IRS. Senator McConnell is right. Senator Reid is right. They have both addressed it. The issue is the IRS has to be completely neutral in politics, but they do have to go after organizations and individuals who are not abiding by the rules, whether they are right, left, center or no ideology at all. I remember during the Bush years we saw the IRS targeting liberal churches. It was awful. They were harassing them and forcing them to show that they were nonprofits. Now we see the IRS has been targeting tea party groups. Whether they are targeting right or left, that is wrong, and anyone doing it, frankly, needs to get another job because that is against the law. We cannot have politically motivated audits or harassing people, whatever their politics may be. Here is what we do need. We do need a fair IRS that definitely looks at whether organizations, be they left or right, are truly deserving of tax-exempt status--that is important--but not targeting one group or another. We also know the targeting of the tea party groups took place while a Bush appointee was the head of the IRS, probably--perhaps was quite unaware. The bottom line is people at the top have to be held accountable. I agree with that. He should have known what was going on. But there is no room for this. I do believe there has to be serious action taken at the personnel level; otherwise, people will just go ho-hum.…
